Measured drawing of the entrance façade. by leading architect and designer Sir William Chambers (1723-1796). This villa has been accepted as the work of Andrea Palladio on stylistic grounds alone, and authorities differ as to whether it dates from the 1540s or 1560s. This drawing shows Chambers radically modifying, rather than accurately recording, a Palladian building. Alterations include reduction of basement, omission of windows, altered proportions of the staircase, omission of moulded surrounds, removal of cartouche and exclusion of the female head on the keystone. These alterations had the effect of adapting the Italian building to a form more suitable to a British climate.

Chambers moved to London in 1755 and published his influential Treatise on Civil Architecture in 1759. Chambers demonstrated the breadth of his style in buildings such as Gower (later Carrington) House and Melbourne House, London, in such country houses as Duddingston, Scotland, and in the garden architecture he designed for Wilton House, Wiltshire, and at Kew Gardens. He became head of government building in 1782, and in this capacity built Somerset House, London.